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If you have read many of my previous posts you will know that the majority of my ancestors are from the southern counties of England, that is Sussex, Hampshire, Kent and Surrey.

More recently however I have found myself researching the lives of some of my more northern ancestors, so those from Cumberland, Durham and London (probably stretching it a bit far to say London is northern, but it is north of Sussex!). There is also one line that I haven’t really touched on and that is the BATEMANs from Gloucestershire.

It occurred to me a couple of days ago that all of these “northern” ancestors come from just one branch of my ancestry. They are all ancestors of my great grandmother Dorothy May BATEMAN (1889-1916).

From Dorothy’s father (Henry BATEMAN) I get the Gloucestershire connection and from her mother (Dorothy Isabella KINGHORN) comes the Cumberland and Durham ancestry. Dorothy herself was born in Sussex (probably Preston near Brighton).

I am sure I will probably find other “outsiders” when I go further back on other lines, but I find it rather strange that all my non-southern ancestors come from one particular branch of my family tree and not scattered across all the branches of my tree.